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Theme Of Innocence In A Long Way Gone

878 Words4 Pages

Innocence is something that all people are born with. How and where we are raised directly connects to how long we will keep that innocence. In a small town in Sierra Leone a 10 year old boy lives a life that is similar to most children throughout the world. Beah listens to music, plays with his friends, and enjoy to cause trouble. As result of the war he is forced to wonder from village to village in search of food, water, and hopefully his family. This happens until he ends up on an army bace of the Serra Leone National Army. Beah, subsequently becomes a child soldier and starts his experience fighting a war at only thirteen years old. Ishmael Beah, experiences the loss of innocence throughout his memoir, A Long Way Gone which leads him to a troubling and traumatic childhood. Beah experiences loss of innocence through death at a very young age. Beah, at this point in the story, is a twelve year old boy who has never really seen violence first hand. This is until he gets word that the rebels have attacked his home town while he had been away with his rap group. He suddenly drops everything and goes …show more content…

He sees a man cry for the first time in his life. This event is the first major loss of innocence in Beah’s life. Beah is then forced to watch his friend die only a few months later. As result of this event Beah experiences a monumental loss of innocence. Finally Beah is forced to experience violence in a very monumental way. Beah becomes a child soldier which results in my opinion the biggest loss of innocence in his life. He is forced to kill without fully understanding what he has done. Beah also must do this with the use of drugs which results in him not being able to tell the difference between right and wrong. Beah’s experiences should stand as a lesson to all in showing the importance of innocence and family as a

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